During the Syrian Civil War, over 5 million Syrians lived as refugees in first countries of asylum, of whom more than 40% were children. Many of these children experienced social exclusion, leading to a lack of future prospects. To secure their children’s future, some parents came to see taking them on boats to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea as the only viable option, despite the grave risks involved. The blog is built on narratives of the parents who journeyed over the sea with children, the decision that landed them in a profound dilemma: the very act of fulfilling parental responsibility entailed exposing their children to significant danger. This moral tension continued to haunt parents long after migration.
In previous research among Syrian refugees living under temporary protection in Turkey, evidence showed that the refugees‘ assessments of risks linked to onward migration to Europe across the Mediterranean differ depending on a person’s stage in the life course. For example, single Syrians in Turkey were more inclined to accept the risks of the onward migration than those with families. Although many Syrian parents interviewed for that study wished to migrate to Europe, they often considered it too dangerous to bring the family along on the journey or leave it behind.
This blog draws on a study that observed the opposite pattern through the narrative accounts of seven Syrian refugee parents who travelled with young children after spending varying periods in first countries of asylum — Turkey, Egypt, and Lebanon. They are three mothers and four fathers in their mid-thirties and early forties who settled in Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. Their narratives unfolded chronologically, beginning with migration motivations embedded in the lived realities of these first countries of asylum. Accordingly, their risky migration decisions were grounded in a sense of parental responsibility and framed as a moral obligation to protect their children. This initial framing was later unsettled by a reflective turn at the end of the interviews, where participants revisited the rationality of the risks they had taken from a present-day standpoint, revealing an ongoing process of reinterpretation.
Balancing the Risks of Staying and Leaving: A Parental Dilemma
The Syrian conflict displaced millions of Syrian families, leaving those with young children in neighbouring countries such as Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon in situations of heightened vulnerability. Economic pressures often forced refugee children to forgo schooling and enter the labour market, with estimates suggesting that around one in ten were engaged in child labour. At the same time, early marriage—often functioning as a coping mechanism for families facing acute economic and social insecurity—affected up to one in three girls in some refugee communities.
One of the parents in this study remembered her time in Turkey with her young family: „My daughter reached the age of eight without a single day in school. At her age, I was already reading and writing. She couldn’t even hold a pen.“ These circumstances confronted parents with an impossible dilemma: to stay or to leave, with both options carrying serious risks. Whether staying or leaving, each decision undermined core parental commitments by exposing their children to different, yet equally unacceptable, forms of risk. The decision to embark on a perilous sea journey with children emerged only after a long and agonizing period of reflection, marked by profound moral and emotional struggle.
For some fathers in this study, the idea of braving the sea alone while leaving their spouses and children behind in neighbouring countries was perceived as too risky and therefore unacceptable. Although having their families join later through reunification might have spared them the traumas associated with the journey, they ultimately chose to travel together. For them, leaving their families behind without a male head of household would have imposed a profound emotional and moral burden.
On the other hand, for fathers who could tolerate the risks of leaving the family behind (spouse with children), the increasingly restrictive—and in some cases nearly inaccessible—reunification policies in Europe fuelled fears that the process would take too long or ultimately fail, resulting in prolonged family separation. These concerns often contributed to the decision to embark on the perilous journey together as a family.
In the same vein, the mothers reported that their husbands had departed earlier under the agreement that they and their children would later join the husbands through a safer and legal family reunification pathway. However, growing fears that this possibility might be withdrawn raised the risk of permanent family separation. Consequently, the mothers decided to undertake the same perilous boat journey with their young children, retracing the route their husbands had taken before them.
„I was afraid that reunification could become a long process. So, I decided not to wait, even though my family was against me travelling with a three‑month‑old baby and other two‑year‑old child. But it was the future of my children that was at stake, and I had to do it“, Esme opened her story by affirming the perceived rightness of her decision not to wait for legal reunification with her husband in Sweden, who had migrated earlier alone while she had to remain in Turkey to recover from childbirth.
Virtuous Risking: Endangering Children to Save Them
By taking their children on dangerous migration journeys, parents knowingly exposed them to serious risks. The photographs of the three-year-old Syrian boy Alan Kurdi, whose lifeless body washed ashore on a beach in Greece in 2015, became a stark illustration of the tragic outcomes that parents feared. A mother, Zehra, who travelled with two toddlers recounted that moment: „I was packing to leave Istanbul for Bodrum to embark on a boat to Greece, when I turned on the TV and saw a boy’s body lying on the shore. It was Alan Kurdi. He was the same age as my son. I was petrified.“
The paradox of risking their children’s lives to save them was something parents tried to comprehend through a sense of their normative and ethical role as caregivers. They emphasised that the risk of the sea journey—one that could have deadly consequences for their children and for which they themselves would bear the moral weight—was ultimately overridden by what they perceived as the supreme moral imperative of parenthood. This reflects a form of virtuous risking, in which the magnitude and consequences of risk become secondary to the deeper question: What kind of person am I (or do I want to be) and what kind of life should I live if I accept or reject a given risk? Therefore, at the centre of virtue ethics is the moral character of a person. This was confirmed by Zehra’s final thought on the decision to eventually take her two young children on the boat, despite the fright she experienced knowing of young Alan Kurdi’s death: „It paralyzed me for a day or two. But eventually, I gathered the courage again. I felt that I had to do it for the sake of my children.“ Her decision was motivated by a deep determination to show, both to herself and to her children, the strength of her commitment as a parent.
Amina is a mother who, like Zehra, travelled alone with her two young children to follow her husband’s path and reunite in Germany. As she laid down her story, she found herself in disbelief at what she perceived as her own carelessness in exposing her children to such danger: „Where was my mind when I put my children on that boat?“, she asked herself. Yet moments later, she provided the answer. She reminded herself that, as a mother, she had no real choice. She feared that if they stayed in Turkey, she would one day see her children as teenagers roaming the streets, selling drugs—the only future she felt awaited them. „It was a difficult decision, but there is nothing I would not do to save my children“, Amina affirmed. This statement again illustrates the alignment between her moral character and the risky migration she chose to pursue.
Parents‘ Reflection on the Moral Dilemma in Retrospect
The moral value placed on courageous risk-taking shaped the parents‘ narratives about their decision to migrate at the beginning of their stories. Yet over the storytelling—when revisiting the decision from a „here and now“ perspective—they found it difficult to rely on virtue alone to justify the risks they had accepted. Their closing reflections revealed a persistent tension between guilt for exposing their children to danger and the perceived inevitability of a moral imperative to secure their children’s future.
Enes travelled with his young family, a decision rooted in his sense of responsibility as the male head of household, ensuring he would not leave his family behind. However, by the end of the interview, he questioned whether this conviction had ultimately failed him. This doubt became particularly troubling when, years after the migration, his son, remembering the tumultuous journey, asked: „Dad, we could have died at sea, right?“ Enes described the pain of being unable to provide a convincing answer, as he himself was in profound perplexity.
Another extremely poignant story was narrated by Esme. At the beginning of her story, she embodied the same moral conviction that had animated the accounts of other parents, a sense of righteousness that likewise informed her decision to migrate. However, upon reaching the point of the sea crossing, her narrative shifted. The ending revealed fear and confusion—not only about what the right course of action was, but also about which risks she was responsible for avoiding.
„After 30 minutes of sailing towards Greece, the boat encountered a problem. With too many people on board and not enough gasoline, the boat gradually came to a halt. As the waves grew stronger, water began splashing onto the children, including my four-month-old son. I saw water entering his mouth. Tears streamed down my face as I whispered, ‘I have killed my child’. I wanted to die first… Even after so many years have passed, the memory still haunts my dreams—the moment the boat came to a halt in the vast expanse of the sea, and those same words: ‚I have just killed my child!'“
In virtuous risking, a person is not primarily judged by their capacity for logical calculation, but by their state of mind, in which multiple faculties—perception, desire, and importantly, emotions—interact as integral to virtue. While these elements provided a solid grounding for the parents to make the migration decisions, this same logic faltered when the journeys were assessed in hindsight. Years after the migration, they remain haunted by the anguish that, in protecting their children’s lives, they ultimately put those same lives at risk.
Diversifying Safe Pathways for Refugees: Family-Centred Protection
To be both a parent and a refugee is to carry a profound responsibility: beyond ensuring one’s own survival, it entails protecting the lives and futures of one’s children. This study showcases stories of parents who were confronted with an excruciating moral dilemma: to fulfil their parental responsibility to protect their children from the war, parents exposed them to deadly danger of sea migration to Europe.
The parents‘ experiences interviewed for this study are shaped directly by migration policies. For Syrian refugees, the European response has taken the form of increasingly fortified borders. These structural constraints, which left families with few viable options, shifted the burden of decision-making to individuals, effectively transferring responsibility to parents. The migration stories in this text underscore the urgent need for safe and legal pathways for refugees, particularly young families with children, as these can prevent family separation and reduce reliance on dangerous routes.
UNHCR promotes complementary pathways as safe and regular migration options for refugees, including family reunification, education opportunities, and labour mobility schemes. However, it acknowledges that these avenues are not fully inclusive. Its broader vision therefore emphasizes more diversified pathways to ensure protection for those who fall outside categories such as students or skilled workers, providing them with viable routes to safety. Additional measures, including humanitarian visas and private sponsorship schemes, are also needed. These mechanisms are particularly important for young families, as the traumas associated with irregular migration can affect all family members and may persist across generations.